The Source of Sorrow
by Jedi Amoira
Summary: Alistair and Elan's close escape from the sloth demon's web of dreams has them remembering other close escapes in surprising ways, with some revelations yet to come. Spoilers Complete--for now?
1. Never Quite So Frightening

Disclaimer-- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters there-in, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.) Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge. Further, like all fanfic writers, I am fueled by reviews. If you like and want more, please encourage me by telling me so. If you see something you dislike or think needs to be fixed, I will be happy to learn...but please be gentle!

Note-- This fic is a fragment of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I wanted to post.

I will probably add at least one chapter to this at some point in the future, but I'm not sure when that will happen.

It may help to know that in Elan's story arc, Alistair had no idea about what happened prior to Elan's arrival in Ostagar, just his own (good but incorrect) theory.

In Elan's story-arc, this story would be taking place right after the group has left the Circle Tower with the intention of approaching Redcliffe for the first time.

Fic Title Reference: Guilt is the source of sorrow, 'tis the fiend,Th' avenging fiend, that follows us behindWith whips and stings. --Nicholas Rowe

Chapter Title Reference: Failure is never quite so frightening as regret. — Cliff (Sam Neill from The Dish)

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"Hunnh," Wynne yawned. "Rest would be welcome. It has been a long day."

Alistair and Elan watched her go. "You were right about her," Alistair mused. "She is a strong woman. Between the archdemon and the unfriendly beings of the Fade, I may never sleep again."

"Tell me about it," Elan said in fervent agreement.

"I'd say I'd tell you mine if you tell me yours, but...you've already seen mine, you know."

"Hmmm." Elan rubbed at the back of her neck. Alistair reached up and replaced her hand with his own. "I was at Weisshaupt. With Duncan."

"Huh." Alistair's hand stilled. "Isn't life funny. I dream of a family I don't have—"

"And I have a family I don't dream of?" It amazed her that the words could sound so simple.

Alistair had the good-grace to look sheepish. "Well...I...uh...I didn't mean...it's just...you didn't know him like I did..."

"That doesn't mean I don't mourn his loss," she said, the tears she hadn't shed for for her home or her family burning in her eyes. "I...it'sallmyfault," she said in a rush.

Alistair blinked. "What? What are you talking about?"

"I...wasn't doing my duty...as a Grey Warden."

"Elan? Are you delirious?" Alistair demanded, torn between concern and indignation. "You fought your way through a tower _full_ of darkspawn so the signal could be lit. You nearly _died_ in the process. You'd been a Grey Warden for less than a day! How is that anything less than doing your duty?"

"If I'd been...more vigilant...If I'd paid attention in that meeting...seen the signals Loghain and Uldred _had_ to have been sending...I could have...I don't know...pointed them out? It might not have been enough to make the king change the battleplan, but maybe it would have been enough to put us—you and me...and Duncan—on our guard. I—we—might have gone to the Tower expecting trouble...If I hadn't let my guard down, let the darkspawn take me by surprise—"

"They took us both by surprise, you know," Alistair objected faintly, still looking startled.

"It wasn't your fault. But anyone who's studied stealth techniques as often and as long as I have should have been able to spot the signs from miles off. I didn't...and I'm sorry. I wish..." She stopped and took a shuddering breath, her eyes glittering as if she actually was feverish.

Alistair was looking about for Wynne. "Flemeth should have warned me not to let you overexert yourself. Or...you know...get caught in a dream where the very life is being sucked out of you. I wonder if this is a weird interaction between that dream and the Warden nightmares? That would explain why you dreamed about Duncan—"

Elan continued over him. "If you hadn't felt obligated to protect me—thanks for that, by the way, I'm not ungrateful, really—but...if my own _stupidity_ hadn't made it necessary you—we—could have fought our way to—"

"I wish I was with him. In the battle," Alistair admitted with a sigh. "Maybe I could have done something." He raked the fingers of his free hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "But more likely, I'd just be dead. And Duncan wouldn't want that. It's not like that would make him happy...While I deeply regret not being at Duncan's side, I have never—_never—_regretted standing—staying—by yours."

Elan shifted away from him, just enough to look up into his face, her knees bumping his as they angled together. The warmth of his brown eyes eased some of the tension knotting her neck and shoulders, even as it renewed the tears that scorched her eyes. "Really? Duncan and the king—"

"I was overwhelmed, too, you know. I wasn't exaggerating when I said we'd be dead if not for Morrigan's mother...by the Maker, I thought I saw the burning archdemon itself coming for us as I fell. If you hadn't been there—if you hadn't fallen—I would _still_ have been overwhelmed before I got out of the Tower. Do you think I don't know that? Don't _you_ know that?" He dropped his hand from her neck to her far shoulder, pressing her toward him slightly in a gesture between an embrace and an attempt to shake some of her usual sense back to the surface.

Maybe Alistair was right. But Elan had the suspicion at the time, and she'd never shaken it since, that the king hadn't suggested the two of them at the spur of the moment. And that almost had to be because he'd decided to keep her out of danger. After all, if Fergus didn't come back, she was the last of her line...or she would have been if she had been Elan Cousland and not a Grey Warden. Duncan was aware of her feelings on the matter, and she'd almost expected him to voice the objection for her. But he didn't._ Why? And why do I survive...even when my life has ended? Not once, but twice...Maker, it is unkind and unfair to make me suffer so. Especially when Al—others suffer too. _"But...do you think..." _That Duncan and the king would have sent you to the Tower if I hadn't been there? _

"Duncan and the king only sent us to the Tower as a convenient excuse to keep a raw recruit out of battle? No. Absolutely not. Duncan knew you could handle yourself. They may have thought that was a nice benefit, but I believe—I _know—_that was _not_ why Duncan agreed to send us. Even if it was why Cailan suggested it—which I doubt." Alistair said firmly.

He couldn't believe Elan had spent all this time blaming herself for something that...no, he didn't want to think about that, because if he thought of it, he'd think he really _ought_ to tell her, and he _really _didn't want to do that. This conversation alone was proof enough of just how much trouble his very existence could –and did—cause. Routinely, no less. He stifled the urge to sigh.

Elan couldn't help feeling comforted. But, at the same time, she wondered if he'd be quite as sure Duncan and the king hadn't been trying to protect her if he knew why she had left Highever. Why she had joined the Wardens. She knew she ought to tell him. Part of her even wanted to, but she simply couldn't, because if she did she would fall apart at the seams, and she didn't think there was enough thread in all of Thedas to stitch her back together again.

Alistair would be frantic. She couldn't do that to him.

And she couldn't do it to herself. She couldn't think of the girl she had been. She had to think of the duty she had been given. The duty that must be done.


	2. A Little Dream of Me

Notes--I highly recommend _from dirt_ by Setrus. It's an incredible look at the city elf origin and how it shapes one woman's life and decisions.

This chapter and the previous are a bit vague as to setting...I'm hoping that someday I can embellish upon them...but that day is probably far distant. Thoughts on the matter are welcome. Should these two chapters be at the Spoiled Princess? In camp? Why?

Some dialogue comes from is modeled off of DAO.

Chapter Title Reference: Louis Armstrong song

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"It probably sounds stupid," Alistair said eventually, "I mean...I know I already admitted I couldn't have done anything even if I'd been beside him...but I feel like I abandoned him. Duncan, I mean."

"No," Elan said softly, leaning into his side as if to support him in a very real, physical way. Or maybe she was seeking a real, physical reminder that he was there, supporting her...as he had been since they'd met. Of course, it was the same thing, really. "I understand."

She paused, staring into the fire again.

She could almost see the look that had passed between Duncan and Alistair before the battle, a look that had reminded her of the last glimpse she'd ever had of her parents. She remembered the way she'd swallowed the urge to beg, to plead with Duncan to reconsider, not to leave them behind...not to send them—send her—away. Again.

She could almost see her mother crouching to embrace her father, feel Duncan's iron grip on her wrist. She could almost smell her hair burning, the oily, acrid smell of grief.

"_Completely_," she added, almost wistfully, her nose crinkling.

"I'd like to have a proper funeral for him." Alistair said in the same wistful tone. "Maybe once this is done, if we're still alive. I don't think he had much family to speak of."

"He had you," Elan said simply. _And so do I. Thank the Maker. You're here and I am not alone. _

Alistair smiled slightly, that same smile that did and didn't reach his eyes. The smile that nearly broke through the wall of grief and denial and duty that was all she had holding her together...the smile that nearly made her unravel in a flood of tears as bitter and endless as the sea. She looked hurriedly away.

Alistair didn't notice. He was thinking. "Duncan came from Highever, or so he said. Maybe I'll go up there sometime, see about putting up something in his honor."

A monument to Duncan in Highever...a city he had last seen under seige, a city he had failed to save..._Why does it seem so fitting?_ The question bothered her, had the earmarks of something she would think of again and again, resounding in her head with each repetitive step as she walked along the path on which Duncan had set her...but she found she didn't resent it. She was sure there was a connection somewhere, one that she could accept and respect. Puzzling out what it was would keep her from remembering her home itself, keep her from thinking of all she had lost, of all the things she was doomed to miss...for the rest of her life. A life she owed to Duncan, after all. _No, it's definitely fitting, much as the idea may sting. _

Something in Elan's whole being changed when he mentioned Highever. It was as if she'd been transported there. The distance between them weighed on Alistair like years of hard living, and the weight seemed so sad.

He could have kicked himself for being so stupid...hadn't she just reminded him of her own grief? A grief he knew touched on Highever...and yet he had to go and mention it, like a bastard. _Well, a man can't help acting like what he is...but, still. I should have known better._

But Elan sounded very present—the sadness dispelled with the distance—as she said, "Maybe I'll go. Back to Highever. With you, I mean. When you go."

"I'd like that. And so would he, I think." _Though I wonder if he'd like just how much I like it...just how much I like you, really. _

"So," he asked as flippantly as he could manage, "how did you know it wasn't real?"

"What, aside from the fact the archdemon isn't dead, Duncan _is_, and the Blight isn't over?" Elan smiled up at him, the vulnerability he'd seen in her eyes at Ostagar still there, but darker, deeper—the twinkle of her wry amusement winking behind it like a sliver of moon on a cloudy night.

"Um, yes. Aside from that." She loved that sheepish expression, the way it pulled one corner of his firm, generous mouth higher than the other, the little furrows between eyes as mellow and fortifying as tea.

"Easy." She waited for him to ask.

"Easy?" Alistair gave her a skeptical look just as fetching as the sheepish one. _How does he do that?_ She wondered, but the most marvelous thing was that she didn't really care how he did it, only that he did.

"Two things, really," she explained. "Duncan was trying to convince me that peace had come for good, that the Wardens would merely be...a sort of living homage to our own deeds in the past...lorekeepers, I suppose? Like bards. Not terribly vigilant."

"Hmm. Not much like Duncan either." Alistair said.

Elan clapped her hands together, nodding adamantly. "That was what I said!"

"And the other thing?" Alistair prompted into the pause that followed, his voice tender for some reason he couldn't quite explain.

"Oh." She glanced away, suddenly embarrassed. "That."

Alistair raised his eyebrows at her, intrigued. "Yes, that."

"I...um..."

"What? Was it like that dream where you go to chapel to make the Grand Cleric happy, only to find she's furious because you're in nothing but your small clothes?" Then, much lower, so she wasn't sure she'd heard correctly, "Oh, please say it was." The tips of his ears seemed to redden slightly, but it might have just been the shifting firelight.

"No..." the way Elan drew the word out was—unintentionally, or so Alistair thought—suggestive. Tantalizing even. "It just seemed really strange...that you weren't there." Alistair's fingers instinctively closed around her shoulder, drawing her a bit closer. "Because, well...you know..."

Alistair wasn't entirely sure he did, but he thought he might like to...

"You're a Warden," she said more firmly. "And, too, I sort of wondered where Woofus was. And it was all just too...odd."

"Now why didn't that sort of thing occur to me?" Alistair asked, hoping she couldn't hear how wildly his heart was beating. And then he realized—it _had _occurred to him. He'd been thinking about her—in the dream. He'd begun to wonder where she was...and then she was there, as if he'd conjured her into existence.

"Probably because you were unlucky enough to get stuck in a dream where anything unusual could just be chalked up to the novelty of the situation," Elan said practically.

"Thank you for making me sound less foolish than we both know I was." His voice was a gloomy, but he was smiling, admiring of her pragmatism and touched by her...solicitude.

"Alistair..." Elan touched his knee. "Wanting a place to belong...a family...That's not foolish." _In fact, we're damned lucky the demon picked up on my guilt about Duncan and not on my longing for my family, or we probably would have all ended like Niall._ "The ability to love...that's what the darkspawn lack."

"Huh. Definitely an interesting take on the Chantry's version—"

"Is it? I'm not sure they're that far apart, in the end. Isn't selfishness at the root of sin? And love—well, maybe that's not all it is, and maybe it isn't like that all the time...but it _can_ be selfless, sometimes. My mother—" Elan broke off, pressing her lips tightly together, as if compressing a terrible wound.

Her expression looked exactly like Alistair felt when he thought of Duncan. He supposed being disowned by your family must feel like a death...it would have to, to put that look on her face.

"I...I'm exhausted," she blurted awkwardly. She did look tired. Huge dark circles framed her eyes. "I—I should...get some sleep while I can."

A perfectly reasonable comment. So why did Alistair have the feeling she was still trapped in the Fade, running from some demon—or demons—she just couldn't escape? He wanted to ask, but he didn't know how to do it without intruding on her grief. She had respected his grief and she deserved as much in return.

"I...thank you for listening," she added awkwardly, sounding almost shy.

"My ears—like all the rest of me—are at your disposal...eh..." Alistair almost choked on the words. They sounded...so tawdry...and so truthful. "I mean...I'm at your command. That is..."

Elan was looking at him as she couldn't quite figure out what had him flustered—at least he hoped she couldn't—but suspected it ought to be obvious—which it probably was. For a moment he thought she might comment.

"And don't think I don't appreciate it," she mumbled, weariness sweeping over her face, washing speculation away. "G'night."


End file.
